Chapter 1437: The Black Market
Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
Taking the elevator down to the lobby, Xia Fan met with the driver-bodyguard Tony had come with, a dark-skinned burly man over two meters tall who went by the name of Joe.
In truth, Xia Fan and Traveling Buddha didn’t need a bodyguard. But they didn’t want to reveal their ident.i.ties, and businessmen normally hired a few bodyguards when they arrived at the Outer Frontier. Xia Fan was simply following the trend.
Joe had a very shabby hovercar, also made up from spare parts that the Inner Territories had thrown out. Every year, the Inner Territories produced large amounts of trash that would be sold off to the Outer Frontier at a low price through traveling salesmen.
While they were waste products that the Inner Territories didn’t want, in the impoverished Outer Frontier, such things were extremely valuable. Tony told them that it had taken many years of work to gather the money to buy this car. In his neighborhood, Tony was the first person to personally own a car!
“Park the car here. We’ll head into the market,” Tony said to Joe.
!!
The darkly muscular Joe nodded. He went and found two homeless people on the street, giving them two coins so that they would watch the car and wipe it down. The two scrawny youths agreed hastily.
“In truth, I also started as one of these people outside the hotel, doing work for other people, was.h.i.+ng cars for a living. Later on, after I saved a little money, I worked as a guide in the market for people from the Inner Territories, just like them.” Tony pointed at the men and women squatting on the side of the road outside of the market.
Those people were also guides, but their quality was much lower than a guide like Tony, who had his own car. When Inner Territories people got close, they would gather around like flies and try to sell themselves.
Having Tony as a guide really saved Xia Fan a lot of trouble. As they walked up to the market’s main gate, the guides who were looking to find customers didn’t surround them. Presumably, they recognized Tony and Joe.
Nearby, a merchant from the Inner Territories who didn’t have a guide was in a terrible spot, surrounded by hundreds of people. The scene was so chaotic that someone managed to tear at his clothes and steal his wallet. He cursed at the side of the road, but there were no police in the Outer Frontier, and n.o.body would uphold justice for him.
Tony chuckled. “Look, another one fell for the trap. The wild guides are all like that. They’ll do their job if they have one, but when they’re hungry and can’t find a job, they’ll steal.”
Xia Fan nodded. “So you’re saying that you also did that sort of thing?”
Tony confessed, “I did. When I was hungry, I was willing to do anything, but not now. Now that I have some status in society, a wife, and two kids, I have to work hard for the money, but I also have to make sure I don’t humiliate my kids.”
Xia Fan chuckled. Tony had a rather principled view of the world, and Xia Fan didn’t have any objections about his personality.
In the savage Outer Frontier, Tony must have had to suffer a lot of hards.h.i.+p to climb up from the lowest rung of society, but there were still many people who were starving. This was reality. While Xia Fan felt like life for the people of the Outer Frontier was tough, he wasn’t running a charity and couldn’t concern himself with their plight.
The “Beacon Grand Market” sign appeared before them. This bra.s.s sign was very old and covered in grime.
A dozen or so security-like people were standing outside the gate. When they spotted Xia Fan, who clearly came from the Inner Territories, they nodded and bowed. But if one of the beggars got close, they savagely beat them until they ran away.
The market consisted of many two-storey buildings that were linked together. The concrete forming many of the buildings had begun to crack, and the businessmen had simply used some cement to fill in those cracks. The ground was also covered in cracks, and there were a few holes that still had water from yesterday’s rainfall.
The bigger traders would lease several of the small buildings and then renovate them to show off their strength and reputation. Smaller traders were like roadside peddlers, displaying their goods by the entrance and calling out to anyone who pa.s.sed by.
The stores near the entrance were all on a larger scale. The deeper one went, the dirtier and shorter the buildings became.
The market still used ancient public restrooms. There were employees specifically tasked with cleaning them out, but that odor meant that Xia Fan and Traveling Buddha weren’t very willing to go inside them.
Looking like it did, there was no way the Char Star Region’s first-cla.s.s market could compare with the markets of the Inner Territories, but the a.s.sortment of items on sale was very comprehensive, selling large items like tanks and s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps, as well as small items like spare parts, rations, and whatever else one could think. These Outer Frontier traders were even willing to sell large-caliber cannons. It was said that one could even buy biological weapons that had been banned in the three great federations in the place. It was basically a paradise for terrorists.
Of course, biological weapons weren’t sold out in the open, one needed some connections first. Tony swore that he could get Xia Fan nuclear weapons if he wanted them, and Xia Fan and Traveling Buddha were actually quite tempted. After all, these were nuclear weapons, and all it took to get their hands on them was having enough money to do so, which made it rather absurd.
Drugs and medicines were sold in the 17th and 18th districts.
Xia Fan’s group took half an hour to get here. There were many rickshaws in the market, and if one didn’t want to walk, one could spend a little money to take a rickshaw. But Xia Fan and Traveling Buddha wanted to see the entirety of the black market, so they had chosen to walk.
—
They took a break at a table outside a coffee shop in the 17th district. Tony ordered a few cups of coffee and then said to Xia Fan, “Give me that thing you wanted to find for a moment.”
Xia Fan was startled, but he still handed Tony that metal bottle with the Skywing symbol.
Tony entered a store. It wasn’t long before he came out with a stack of photos.
Returning the bottle to Xia Fan, Tony smiled and said, “Going around asking store by store is too much trouble. Let me go and get some people to help out.”
He waved his hand and shouted, “Ssst!”
A hundred malnourished young men and women gathered around him. Tony distributed the photos he had printed to them, and the youths ran off with these pictures, entering the stores to ask around.
“Are those people all your subordinates?” Traveling Buddha asked.
Tony took a sip of his coffee and shook his head. “Of course not? Just a bunch of poor kids who make their living in the market.”
“You don’t need to pay them?”
“I will, but only the people that help me find what I want get the money. That’s the rule by which this place has always operated. If you want to eat, you have to have fast legs and a smart mind.”
Xia Fan nodded. Labor in the Outer Frontier really was cheap. In the Inner Territories, kids of this age were all little emperors at home, living lives of luxury instead of trying to get by in the streets.
—
Half an hour pa.s.sed, but none of the kids had come back.
Tony frowned and said to Xia Fan, “This is going to be difficult. The market might not have what you want.”
Xia Fan had expected that and wasn’t too shocked.
The Skywings had attacked Ashen Moon forty thousand years ago. Given all the time that had pa.s.sed, there were few that remembered the incident, so finding clues regarding the Skywings would be extremely difficult.
But Xia Fan still wasn’t willing to give up. He asked Tony, “Are there other markets besides this one?”
Tony nodded. “There are, but Beacon is the biggest. If you can’t find it in Beacon, there’s even less of a chance that you will find it elsewhere.
“Why don’t we do this? If we don’t find anything today, I’ll take you to the other places to take a look.”
It seemed like that was the only choice. Xia Fan looked up at the sky and saw that the sun was setting, and things were getting gloomier. The local weather was very weird in this place. In summer, it would rain every night without exception.
All about them, the street traders were starting to close up shop. Although the market had security, they still used reinforced trit.i.tanium alloy doors to seal their stores, in order to prevent any thieves from breaking in at night. From that, one could see that the safety of the market was rather mediocre.
Tony questioned a few of the kids who had gone searching, and they all shook their heads, directly saying that none of the stores had what Xia Fan was looking for.
There was no reward if the kids couldn’t find the goods, but Tony wasn’t a bad sort. He ordered a platter of cakes from the coffee shop and divided it among the kids.
Tony wouldn’t give them money, as this would break the rules, but he could at least make sure the beggars had full bellies.
The dark and thin hands of the children grabbed the cakes and stuffed them into their mouths while expressing their grat.i.tude, but Tony appeared extremely cold and aloof.
He said to Xia Fan, “Don’t feel any pity for these kids. There are murderers, drug addicts, thieves, and all sorts of other criminals among them. Giving them a little to eat is fine, but do not show any sort of compa.s.sion. In the Outer Frontier, people will take any compa.s.sion as a sign that you’re a pushover.”
The dark and burly Joe nodded in agreement. It was precisely because of his intimidating size and gaze that most of the children didn’t dare to approach, only watching from a distance.
Traveling Buddha frowned. “They’re so young, but they’ve already committed murder?”
Tony sighed and looked up at the heavens. “The people of the Outer Frontier are wild beasts, and the children of the Outer Frontier are a bunch of cubs.
“It’s getting late. It’s not very safe here at night, so let’s go back.”
With no other option, Xia Fan and Traveling Buddha could only nod.
As they were leaving the market, Tony laughed and asked Xia Fan and Traveling Buddha if they wanted to go some place fun tonight.
“If you can think of it, I can help you find it. Given how young you are, I’m sure that you two have a lot of fire in you. What if I find you twins? It will be very cheap, certainly not a price you can get in the Inner Territories.”
Traveling Buddha normally seemed like he didn’t care about anything, but he was actually very rebellious. The more unusual something was, the more interested he became. On the other hand, Traveling Buddha hated conducting himself seriously.
But as Xia Fan was here, Traveling Buddha didn’t feel like it was right to keep asking questions.
Just as they were about to leave the market, a scrawny but extremely shrewd youth of twelve or thirteen years old with large eyes ran over and stopped Tony. He was panting for breath.
“Did you find what we wanted?” Tony asked him.
The youth shook his head and said, “I ran all over the market and didn’t find a match, but I found something that has the same design as the one on the metal bottle!”
Xia Fan was startled. The same design? That was very likely to be something else left behind by his family!
He was inwardly shocked, but on the surface, Xia Fan continued to smile as usual.
Tony looked at Xia Fan for his opinion. Xia Fan asked the youth, “What did you find? How did you find it?”
The shrewd youth said, “At the start, I also searched for what was given to us, but I couldn’t find anything, no matter what I did. But I was so hungry and really wanted to eat, so I thought about how that thing you wanted to find had a very special design. If I were to find something that had the same design, you might be interested in it!
“Thus, I left the 17th district and went to ask around the stores in the other districts. Finally, I found a shopkeep who said that he had something with that design. But I didn’t have time to ask him what it was, because I knew that it was getting dark. So I hurried back to report this matter.”
After the youth finished talking, he stared at Xia Fan.
Xia Fan smiled and patted the youth on the shoulder. “You’re quite clever, knowing how to make deductions. What’s your name?”
“I don’t have a name. Because I have big eyes, the people in the market all call me Big Eyes.”
Xia Fan chuckled. “Lead the way, Big Eyes.”
“Mm!” Big Eyes nodded excitedly.
He knew that Xia Fan was interested in the thing he had found, which meant that he would get a reward today, and would have food to eat. He excitedly led Xia Fan’s group into the depths of the market.
It was already dark, and more and more people were leaving the market. Few people were heading into the market like Xia Fan was.
—
It wasn’t long before they arrived at the 8th district, which specialized in clothes.
Most of the stores had closed, but one small store was still brightly lit, a hunchbacked old man standing in front of it.
“This is the place!” Big Eyes pointed at the store that was still open. As he was filthy and smelled bad, Big Eyes wouldn’t go inside the store, nor would the store owner let beggar children inside his establishment.
Xia Fan nodded and threw him a fifty-gram gold coin.
The kid caught the gold coin and stared at it in panic and disbelief. The look in the eyes of Tony and Joe clearly said that Xia Fan had given too much as a reward.
Xia Fan chuckled. “I still have something else I need you to do. If you do a good job, I’ll give you more.”
“Go and eat first. Tomorrow morning, wait for me at the entrance to the market.”
“Thank you, boss! Thank you, boss!”
Big Eyes swiftly hid the gold coin in his shoe and ran off. He didn’t go back the way he had come, instead shooting off into a dark alley.
Xia Fan had been correct in his judgment. The kid was truly very clever!
Xia Fan’s group entered the store. The hunchbacked shopkeeper, perhaps seeing how Xia Fan had rewarded Big Eyes, treated them with extreme respect, asking them to sit while calling his daughter-in-law to brew some tea.
Xia Fan sat down and started to look around. This was a very ordinary clothing store that mostly sold old clothes from the Inner Territories. They were bought by the sack, washed clean, and then sold off at a low price to the impoverished natives. There were a variety of odors in the store, though this wasn’t unusual.
Xia Fan looked at the old man and directly said, “Big Eyes mentioned that you have something here with this symbol of wings?”